Brussels, 16/10/2012 (Agence Europe) - Europe drew a step closer to the introduction of a financial transactions tax on Tuesday 16 October when the European Commission received notification from enough countries (nine) to launch the enhanced cooperation system for introduction of the tax.
On Tuesday, Italy and Spain sent in their official requests to join the FTT scheme along with the seven which registered last week (Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia and Greece). At the Economic and Financial Affairs Council in Luxembourg on 9 October, Slovakia and Estonia said they would join the FTT enhanced cooperation system, bringing to eleven the total number of potential participants.
Now that it has received the applications, the Commission is hoping to unveil draft enhanced cooperation details at the next ECOFIN Council meeting (13 November) for agreement before the end of the year. The countries have shown interest based on the draft FTT unveiled by the Commission in September 2011 for a tax of 0.1% on share and bond sales and 0.01% on derivatives with the tax applying when one part in a transaction is officially registered in the EU, even if the sale itself takes place outside the EU. (FG/transl.fl)